Hello

theeggshellladyJuly 21, 2008

Just want to say hello, I found this site a while back when I was searching for mosaic sites. I found a question about eggshell mosaics and just had to respond. Since then I've been reading and enjoying the pictures of all of your beautiful work. I was pleasantly surprised to find a wealth of knowledge and talent here. I am truly inspired! Here is a picture of one of my mosaics.

OMG!!! That is so beautiful and AMAZING!!!! You put me to shame!!!! How big is this and how long does it take you? And how do you do it??? We go thru a lot of eggs here as my DH is eggxtra crazy bout eggs! hmmm...

that is so cool, is the whole pic done with egg shell, what do you color it with? i have a big bowl of egg shells, i save them to put around plants to keep sluggs off, but i think this would be a much better use for them, but if working with egg shells is anything like working with crash glass, i can get over trying egg shells :-)
i really like the cat tails also.
bonnie

This is a beautiful piece...you should be proud.
Bonnie, use your glass and china shards around your plants to keep the slugs off and your eggshells for something like this. If I have a particularly bad infestation of the slimy creatures I put pennies around the plant and when they crawl across the copper they get shocked. LOL

This is so unbelieveably beautiful.!! I have no idea how you do that with eggshells. I don't have a clue how you would do thisk, and yes, as Slow said, do you grout it?? How do you keep them clean, from breaking
questions questions!!

Hi again! Thank you all. I started working with eggshells because I have very little space to work in. So I thought small - eggshells. When you prepare the eggshells make sure you clean them really good and peel out the membrane.
I use acrylic craft paint (like folkart or delta) to paint them. Don't use washable paint. Then you will need to prepare the surface you want to mosaic. I usually use 1/4 inch plywood but any rigid surface will do. Paint it using acrylic craft paint. Make sure the color will go along with your color scheme because it will show up between the cracks in the eggshells and appear to be grout. So you do not actually grout it. Next draw out your design using a pencil. Now comes the fun part - glueing on the eggshells. I use modpodge. Paint a small area (about 1 inch square with modpodge and working with one color at a time, break off a piece of eggshell, press it into the glue. the piece will crack. Use a toothpick to separate the eggshell pieces so there is a little space between them. Keep going until your design is complete. Then paint it over with the modpodge to seal it. I also use minwax polycrylic on top of that to really protect the surface.
I hope I have answered most of your questions. the butterfly is about 10" x 10". That one is made with very tiny pieces. The only drawback is this does take a long time. Unfortunately I am really bad about keeping track of my time. I guess it took me about a month, working on it anywhere from 20 min to 2 hrs a day. I think if I could work steadier, it would go faster.
So I hope some of you give it a try.

The pennies are working for me on the slugs. I hate them and have waged an all out war against them. I have a lot of frogs and toads and they are a natural predator of the slugs so I don't want to use anything that might kill them such as slug bait, so I use pennies, copper brillo pads from Wal Mart (unroll them and cut into strips) all my glass and china pieces that are too small for anything else.My beds are littered with bits and pieces. But not a lot of slugs.